"Chancellor George Osborne says the figures [UK inflation fell to a five-year low of 1.2% in September from 1.5% the month before] are a "dose of good economic news""In what way is this good news? The BoE has a symmetric target - below target is as bad a policy failure as above target. And low inflation is only good news for individuals to the extent that their incomes are unaffected. If low inflation is accompanied by a lack of wage growth, which it is, then this is in no way good news. Given high debt levels, lower than expected inflation and income growth is unambiguously bad economic news.

"[To t]hose dismayed by Britain’s wide disparity of individual wealth ... The overriding reason is the gulf between the prosperity of London and the provinces. This must in part result from a shift in power from local to national government, a perverse consequence of a “single state” constitution. Every year 30,000 graduates flow from provincial universities to jobs in London. Barely 11,000 go the other way. This crippling drain of talent and earning power is one reason why cities in Germany and elsewhere in Europe are richer and more robust than in Britain. Inequality starts with power."

# Henry Overman of the LSE's Spatial Economics Research Centre in his post, Why are the poorest regions in the UK the poorest regions in Northern Europe?, comments on data similar to my post, A conversation, between economists, on the economics of independence. He looks at the NUTS2 regions of Northern Europe and points out the problem of splitting inner and outer London, but his main critique of the claim that there's something unusual about all the poorest regions of Northern Europe being in the UK, is that this is to be expected given that the UK is the poorest country in Northern Europe. My chart was based on NUTS1 regions, and still the UK has the highest region inequality. But also we have to ask why the UK is the poorest country in Northern Europe, when London and the South East manage to be compare well with this group. It's not soil fertility, remoteness, or population density, or else the rest of the UK would not be getting beat by Ireland and Scandinavia. My conjecture is that it's about power, and Henry Overman's piece does not change my view.